The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Limbaugh says unemployment drop was skewed by Thanksgiving holiday On his Dec. 8, 2009, radio show, conservative host Rush Limbaugh mocked President Barack Obama's claim that the job market is stabilizing.Limbaugh played a tape of Obama giving a speech on the economy and jobs earlier that morning at the Brookings Institut […]
The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Pence says Democrats' plan to spend TARP money on economic stimulus is unlawful In a speech at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 8, 2009, President Barack Obama proposed a whole new batch of economic stimulus initiatives -- everything from tax breaks for small businesses to investments in roads, bridges and other infr […]
The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Gov. Jindal predicts Saints will be first to go undefeated and win Super Bowl After the New Orleans Saints squeaked by with an overtime win over the hapless Washington Redskins on Dec. 6, 2009, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was apparently feeling pretty confident about his undefeated Saints. "I'm predicting we'll […]
The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Beck says labor leader is most frequent White House visitor Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck recently found another rhetorical weapon to use against President Barack Obama: White House visitor logs.In a Dec. 3, 2009, broadcast, Beck decried that Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, appears more times […]
The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Obama said reporters didn't ask questions on the issues, but they did At a jobs summit at the White House on Dec. 3, President Barack Obama closed his remarks with criticism of the media and the political culture in Washington, D.C. Obama was responding to comments from the chairman and CEO of Ethan Allen, a furniture com […]
The Truth-o-Meter says: Barely True | Polls on Afghanistan show a mixed picture President Barack Obama gave a major speech Dec. 1 to make the case for increasing troops in Afghanistan. But antiwar Democrats still say it's the wrong decision. One of those Democrats is Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida. The night before Obama's speech, Grayson appeared on […]
The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Obama says 'extremists' sent to U.S. from Afghanistan-Pakistan border area President Barack Obama has decided to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and he made the case for the increase in a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y."I make this decision because I am convinced […]
You've heard of the Person of the Year and the Sportsman of the Year -- get ready for PolitiFact's Lie of the Year.For our year-in-review coverage, PolitiFact soon will be announcing our Lie of the Year -- the most significant falsehood of 2009. Our staff is examining the claims we've rated False or Pants on Fire and will be choosing the one t […]
President Barack Obama proposed a new batch of economic stimulus initiatives -- tax breaks for small businesses and investments in roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects -- and said the programs could be paid for thanks to new forecasts on the cost of last fall's bailout of financial institutions, otherwise known as the Troubled Asset Relief P […]
In a Dec. 3, 2009, broadcast, Glenn Beck decried that Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, appears more times in a White House visitor log release than anyone else."You've got to ask yourself what the hell happened to this country," Beck said. "If I would have told you instead that the most frequent visitor of th […]
President Barack Obama announced an increase in troops for Afghanistan this week, renewing debate on a complicated area of American foreign policy. We looked into a few different facts we heard during the discussion. Rep. John Murtha criticized the buildup, saying the United States would have more troops in Afghanistan than Russia did during the 1980s. We fo […]
To enforce ideological purity, a proposal before the Republican National Committee would deny party funding to any GOP candidate who bucks the party's stance on at least three items from a 10-point checklist of issues. Keith Olbermann, the liberal host of Countdown on MSNBC, told viewers that the resolution would have effectively blackballed Ronald Reag […]
As a candidate, Barack Obama regularly called the Iraq war a misguided effort in the fight against al-Qaida. The real enemies were hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said, and finding those enemies would not be easy. "There are tribes (there) that see borders as nothing more than lines on a map, and governments as forces th […]
Before resigning as a CNN anchor Nov. 11, Lou Dobbs made a name for himself opposing illegal immigration. So we were surprised to see him a few weeks later on the Spanish-language network Telemundo discussing his views on immigration. "We need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants on certain conditions," Dobbs said.That last point surprised us […]
Our inbox was so full we're running two installments of mailbag this week! This is the second; read the first batch from Thanksgiving Day. How many years of natural gas?We looked at a statement from America's Natural Gas Alliance; they said that the United States has a supply of "more than 100 years of natural gas." We rated that Half Tru […]